Dimension 2. Unpaid Care
Intro
Whether caring for children, parents, partners or friends, Scotland relies on unpaid care to keep society and the economy moving. Unpaid carers provide essential support, often at significant personal cost. The majority of unpaid carers are women. This creates a gendered pattern of financial insecurity, reduced employment opportunities and poorer health outcomes for many women in Scotland.
Dimension snapshot assessment
Unpaid carers often report feeling invisible, undervalued and unsupported. While Scotland has set out important commitments through the Carers Act, the National Carers Strategy and new social security powers, lived experiences show that access to support is inconsistent. Carers from minority ethnic communities, young carers and women on low incomes face particular barriers. The gap between policy intention and the reality of unpaid care remains significant.
Summary
Unpaid care is a core part of Scotland’s social foundation. Without unpaid carers, formal care services could not function. Yet unpaid care is not distributed equally. Women undertake most unpaid care and are more likely to experience financial hardship, disrupted employment and long-term impacts on income and wellbeing as a result.
Scotland has introduced key policies to support unpaid carers, including the Carers Act and a suite of devolved social security payments. These provide rights to assessment and support, entitlement to a break from caring, and targeted financial support for some unpaid carers. Local carer organisations play a vital role in delivering advice and support.
Despite this policy framework, major challenges persist.
• Funding is inconsistent and lacks transparency at local levels
• Carers from Black and minority ethnic communities often face fragmented and culturally unresponsive support
• Carers and parents on low incomes continue to experience high levels of poverty
• Young carers face significant pressures that affect education, wellbeing and employment opportunities
• Cash benefits reach only a small proportion of unpaid carers and do not reflect the real cost of caring
Addressing inequalities in unpaid care for adults and children is critical for tackling women’s poverty, improving health and wellbeing and enabling equal participation in work and society.
Policy areas that influenced this score
Policy Area 2A. Unpaid Carers
Unpaid carers provide essential support across Scotland, often at significant personal and financial cost. The majority of unpaid carers are women. They are more likely to reduce working hours, leave employment or experience long term impacts on income, wellbeing and health because of their caring responsibilities.
Scotland has made important commitments through the Carers Act, the Carers Charter and the National Carers Strategy. These policies set out rights to an Adult Carer Support Plan and Young Carer Statement, the principle of free at the point of use support services and the importance of involving carers in decisions about care.
Despite these foundations, unpaid carers consistently report a significant gap between policy intention and lived experience. Support is not reaching many carers who need it most. Local delivery of the Carers Act is inconsistent. Budget allocations lack transparency. Carers from minority ethnic communities often face fragmented or culturally unresponsive support, and carers on low incomes experience some of the highest poverty rates in Scotland.
These pressures are deeply gendered. Women are disproportionately responsible for unpaid care for adults and children, and failures in formal support systems increase the amount of unpaid care women must provide. This limits women’s employment opportunities, financial security and wellbeing.
View policy area +Policy Area 2B. Parents
Support for parents in Scotland focuses on targeted social security payments designed to help with the costs of raising children. These payments are aimed primarily at low-income families and include Best Start Grants, Best Start Foods and the Scottish Child Payment. These interventions provide important financial support with the majority of recipients being women, reflecting the gendered nature of care and household budgeting.
Despite this, child poverty rates in Scotland remain high, and current payments are not sufficient to address the financial pressures many families face. The adequacy of support is further limited by major areas of social security, such as Universal Credit and wider benefit rules, which remain reserved to the UK Government. This reduces the impact of Scotland’s devolved powers and restricts the ability to design a fully supportive system for parents.
Parents from minority ethnic communities, single parent households and families with disabled members face particularly high poverty rates. Most of these groups are disproportionately led by women. As a result, gaps in policy design and delivery contribute to gendered inequality and financial insecurity.
View policy area +Policy Area 2C. Care Supporting Workplaces
Workplaces play a critical role in supporting or constraining unpaid carers. Most unpaid carers are women, and many combine paid employment with significant caring responsibilities. Workplace policy therefore has a direct impact on women’s income, wellbeing and ability to sustain employment.
Much of the legislation that shapes workplace rights, including flexible working, sick leave, parental leave and breastfeeding support, is set at a UK level. Scotland has taken steps to go further in some areas, for example through Fair Work First guidance and employer recognition schemes. However, these interventions are voluntary and do not guarantee consistent support for carers across workplaces.
Carers continue to face challenges accessing flexible work and supportive workplace cultures. People in insecure work are often least able to use or benefit from workplace rights. Overall, current policy does not adequately reflect the realities of combining paid work with unpaid care, and the system places significant pressure on women who are balancing both roles.
View policy area +Dimension assessment
Unpaid care is fundamental to Scotland’s wellbeing and economy, yet unpaid carers remain undervalued and under supported. Women, who undertake most unpaid care, are disproportionately affected by gaps in support, lack of financial recognition and inconsistent delivery of the Carers Act. Many unpaid carers live in poverty, with high numbers reducing work or leaving employment entirely due to unmet need within adult social care.
Carers from minority ethnic communities experience additional barriers due to fragmented support and cultural inappropriateness of services. Young carers also require greater recognition and targeted assistance to reduce the long-term impacts of caring on education and life chances.
Financial support for unpaid carers reaches only a small proportion of those providing care. Eligibility criteria for Carer Support Payment and the Young Carer Grant exclude many, and payment levels do not reflect the real cost of caring. Older carers receiving a State Pension are also disadvantaged, as they cannot access Carer Support Payment despite facing financial impacts from caring.
Scotland’s devolved family payments provide targeted support to low-income parents. These help to reduce some costs of caring, but poverty rates for families with young children remain high, and the adequacy of payments is limited by UK wide policies that remain reserved.
While Scotland has set out strong ambitions for supporting unpaid carers, implementation remains inconsistent, budgets are not always transparent and many carers do not feel the benefits of policy commitments in their daily lives.